


Chicago Bromance Stockholm Syndrome: a cautionary tale

by emilyray (emilyenrose)



Category: Panic At The Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-26
Updated: 2009-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/69847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyenrose/pseuds/emilyray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or: Five Dudes Jon Walker Has Been Kind Of Gay With</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chicago Bromance Stockholm Syndrome: a cautionary tale

Jon gets into the Chicago scene pretty early. Fall Out Boy opens for his shitty high school band one time. And then his shitty high school band breaks up while Fall Out Boy just keeps getting bigger, but by that point it's too late, because Jon is well and truly stuck in his new surroundings and he doesn't ever want to leave. Screw school. Jon knows where he belongs and it's in a bus or even a van with a bunch of other guys going backwards and forwards across the country and getting far too well acquainted with each other's sweaty armpits.

Jon loves his guys. In Chicago, that's what you do.  
_

_1\. Pete Wentz_

One thing leads to another. Jon doesn't know where the matching jumpsuits came from but he kind of likes them. They pose for the camera, Pete hanging off Jon's shoulders with his mad monkey grip and grinning his mad monkey grin. Jon does his best diva glare over the tops of his jerk sunglasses. Pete plants a smacking kiss on his cheek.

Jon likes Pete a lot because when that guy is around, Jon never needs to feel short. Pete hee-haws with laughter when Jon tells him so. "You should be in my band, Jonny Walker," he crows. "My band is _full_ of short dudes. My band is the place for you."

"I'm a bass player," Jon points out equitably. He's taken off his colour-coordinated hoodie. Pete's still wearing his. They slump together on top of a big squishy beanbag that someone found somewhere - these things just appear, Jon doesn't worry too much about how, maybe there's a beanbag fairy somewhere doing good deeds for undeserving band dudes - and Pete nuzzles Jon's neck. "I mean, I'm a better bass player than you, dude. But I think your guys would miss you."

Pete goes quiet for a minute and then says, "Yeah, yeah they would." He sounds sort of happysad and amazed about it.

A couple of minutes later Patrick comes back with the beer. Pete leaps up and grabs him around the waist, making Patrick curse and reach to steady his hat and accidentally hit himself in the face with a beer bottle. Pete makes a sad face and offers to kiss it better. Patrick goes red and tries to shake him off. Jon laughs and laughs, feeling all floaty and comfortable, and settles in to watch Patrick waste his energy. No one ever shakes Pete off once he's on.

It drifts across his mind that he does kind of miss having a band of his own, but he lets it go. It'll happen sometime, he's pretty sure.

 

_2\. Nick Scimeca_

Nick says, "Can I borrow your car?"

"No," says Jon.

Nick sighs heavily and sits down in Jon's lap. Jon puts his arm around Nick's waist to hold him there. "You can have a beer," he offers.

"I'll take the beer," says Nick. He sighs and wriggles in Jon's lap. "I miss De'Mar." Nick always misses De'Mar when he's on tour.

"He'll be back," says Jon.

Nick sighs louder.

They drink beer.

"You want to stay here tonight?" offers Jon later.

"You're the best," says Nick.

Jon didn't actually mean 'and sleep in my bed', but the thing about Nick is that if you give him an inch he takes the whole ruler. Jon tries half-heartedly to shake him awake, and then just climbs in beside him. No way is he sleeping on the couch in his own freaking apartment.

 

_3\. William Beckett_

Bill grabs Jon's forearms, bends him over backwards, and kisses him hard. The entire truckstop explodes in wolf-whistling. Jon comes up spluttering for air and laughs. "What was that for?" he says.

"For your beautiful face," says Bill. "And for keeping my guitarist mostly sane. To Jon Walker!" He snatches a plastic cup full of something clear and unidentifiable from the Butcher. Butcher snorts. "For doing the impossible and making Conrad bearable!"

Everyone drinks and roars and claps. Jon shrugs and does a little bow.

Later he says to Tom, "You and Bill fighting?"

"Not really," says Tom with a twist to his mouth that means _kind of_.

"Just take it easy," Jon counsels. "You guys are pretty highstrung sometimes."

"It's complicated," says Tom.

"What's complicated about it?" says Jon. "Kiss and make up. Easy."

Tom laughs in a weird kind of way and mutters something that sounds like_ if only you knew_ which Jon ignores because Tom is occasionally an obscure and melodramatic motherfucker.

 

_4\. Tom Conrad_

"He's going to be okay, right?" whispers Brendon, hushed, like he thinks Tom's deathly sick instead of just really down.

"He'll be fine," says Jon firmly. Brendon looks dubious. He's probably imagining getting kicked out of his own band, which anyone can tell would break his heart.

Tom's heart is not broken. He's better off out of there. He was too good for TAI anyway. (Jon keeps telling him these things, at least. He figures if he says them often enough Tom might believe him.)

Since the blowup with Bill and Mike finally went nuclear, he's been keeping a pretty close eye on Tom. It's been good to keep him close, he thinks, plus it's nice to have one of his Chicago guys with him in the middle of the weirdass Panic tour. Jon's not quite settled into Panic yet, not entirely comfortable in his own skin. Brendon and Ryan and Spencer aren't really _his_ guys right now, though he thinks they could be.

Tom's okay during the days, but gets quiet at nights. When he looks grimmest, Jon cuddles up with him and talks about his cats for hours.

 

_5\. Ryan Ross_

Ryan says we should get high and Jon says okay. Ryan says let's make a bonfire and Jon says okay. Ryan suggests they just move in together until the album's done and Jon thinks that's a pretty good idea. They've been writing a lot. Writing with Ryan is easy because Jon and Ryan make so much sense to each other, it's like they're reading each other's minds.

They hold hands when they're watching DVDs. When they get sleepy after they've been smoking on the porch Ryan puts his head on Jon's shoulder. Every time their eyes meet Jon feels kind of warm. It's a good life. It's exactly the way he knew his life was supposed to be, Jon and his band, Jon and his guys, Jon and his guitarist.

But Ryan's been kind of weird lately. Sometimes it's almost like he doesn't want to cuddle anymore.

"Ryan doesn't want to cuddle anymore," Jon tells Gabe sadly. He actually meant to call Spencer, who knows more about Ryan and would probably give better advice, but _Saporta_ is at the top of the Ss in Jon's phone and _Spence_ is about halfway down, so it seemed easier to call Gabe.

"Maybe he's just not that into you," says Gabe, and cackles.

"I don't mean like _that_," says Jon.

"You don't?" Gabe sounds faintly surprised.

"I just love that guy," Jon explains.

"Yeah, truly madly deeply, common knowledge, man. And you bone him, right?"

Jon frowns at the phone. "I - what? He doesn't want to bone me."

"Last time I saw you guys he was sitting in your lap while you played with his hair."

"That doesn't mean anything," Jon protests. "That's Chicago."

"Walker," says Gabe, "your boyfriend isn't _from_ Chicago."

"My - oh," says Jon.

Gabe snorts. Jon hangs up.

_Oh._

_

"We'd even made out," Ryan says complainingly. The guys are listening with an indulgent ear. Everyone's heard Ryan tell this story before. "We'd been on _dates_. Everything. What does a guy have to do to send the signal that it's not fucking platonic?"

Jon tucks his face into Ryan's shoulder and clings a little tighter to his waist. Ryan's voice still has its annoyed tone, but he leans into Jon a little, so Jon knows he doesn't mean it.

"I was this close to giving up. Fucking Chicago bromance," Ryan says. "Seriously." Everyone laughs.

Jon loves this guy, in Chicago or anywhere else.


End file.
